I bumped into some shocking data on web users and their searching abilities. I basically burst out laughing in total disbelieve.
How difficult do you think it is to use Google to do a search? If you did not see the results of this research I can bet that you do not know the answer to this question.
The research was not done by some crack pot researcher but by the well respected Nielsen Norman Group which is well known and respected in web usability circles. The people that they studies were not some back water population that still watch beta max tapes and listen to 8 track tapes. No, these people were normal people that you bump into on a daily basis.
So how many people did not even manage to find the Google search box? 24% – 24 FREEKING PERCENT!! This is not even judging their ability to formulate a useful query once they found the Google search box.
Read the text of the article here: Getting to Google is Hard. To read about how they selected the subjects for this test: User Skills Improving, But Only Slightly.
I had to go back and make sure that this research was current and not published on April Fool’s Day and rest assured, it is brand new research and published in mid March 2008.
What does this mean for SEO and SEM practitioners?
- You better make sure you know which internet browsers are the most popular and understand what search those browsers offer by default and make sure you optimize for those browsers.
- If you provide a search box on your site, make sure that it is easy to find and that you provide examples of search strings that you would like your users to use
Having technical difficulty - 
